Month: August 2022

The 2022 MTV VMAs broadcast has a star-studded lineup, but reports that surfaced shortly before the show said it would get even more stacked with Taylor Swift making an unannounced appearance. It turns out the rumor was actually true, as Swift really did pop up at the show, posing for photos on the red carpet (pictured above). It’s not yet clear if she will be performing or is simply attending the event.

Aside from shaking up the show, Swift had a big night in terms of award consideration, as she was one of the most-nominated artists with five total nods: Video Of The Year, Best Longform Video, Best Cinematography, Best Direction, and Best Editing, all for “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version).”

Beyond Swift, artists who were actually confirmed to perform during this year’s show are Nicki Minaj, Jack Harlow (both of whom are also co-hosting alongside LL Cool J), Lizzo, Blackpink, Bad Bunny, Måneskin, Anitta, Panic! At The Disco, Kane Brown, Marshmello x Khalid, Snoop Dogg with Eminem, J Balvin, and 2022 MTV VMAs Global Icon Award recipients Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

When the WNBA Playoff bracket was set, the second round matchup everyone wanted to see was the Seattle Storm against the Las Vegas Aces and on Sunday we got our wish as those two teams delivered a thrilling Game 1 that saw the Storm swipe homecourt from Vegas with a 76-73 win on the road.

Early on it was all Seattle as they jumped out to a 13-4 lead in the first quarter, swarming the Aces with their defensive length and activity, while Jewell Loyd and Breanna Stewart would get things going on the other end.

Both teams would go through a rough patch in the middle of the quarter, combining to miss 14 consecutive shot attempts, but Seattle took an 11-point lead into the second quarter. Stewie would continue her dominance in the second quarter, as she led the way early for the Storm as they were able to keep the Aces at arm’s length for much of the first half.

While A’ja Wilson struggled with some foul trouble and a Kelsey Plum got off to a rocky shooting start, it was Chelsea Gray that kept the Aces in it, as she went to work creating tough bucket after tough bucket, matching Stewart in that regard in a very fun sequence to end the half that saw Vegas trim the lead to seven.

The Aces continued to pull closer in the third quarter, as Plum started to find her rhythm to help Gray out, as they cut another four points off the lead to make it a three-point game going to the fourth.

In the fourth, the Aces would start to see the three-ball fall and it felt like they might’ve taken the best punch from the Storm and would possibly pull away. After a Plum three cut the deficit to a single-possession, Riquna Williams knocked down a corner three to give the Aces their first lead of the afternoon in the mid-fourth quarter.

As the Storm started to send extra help at Stewart, the Storm needed someone else to step up and turned to Loyd, who led them down the stretch with some incredible shot-making, dueling with Gray in a sensational back-and-forth to close the game, culminating in what became the game-winner with a stepback to push Seattle ahead by three.

That three was preceded by an incredible defensive play by Tina Charles, slapping the ball off of Plum’s leg out of bounds as she circled under the basket to ensure the Aces didn’t get a shot at taking the lead back. Plum would get a pair of clean looks at a three to tie, but it just was not her game from deep as she missed both as part of a 2-for-10 afternoon from three-point range, despite scoring 20 points.

It felt like a game the Storm had to win given how well they played early, as losing that game would’ve been deflating considering what a sensational defensive effort they put forth. Stewart was incredible with 25 points and six rebounds, while Loyd’s fourth quarter run pushed her to the high-point mark of the game with 26 on the afternoon. Sue Bird had 12 assists (and no turnovers) as she orchestrated everything per usual, with Tina Charles dominating on the glass with 18 rebounds to go along with 13 points.

For the Aces, Gray was terrific with 21 points and five assists, but otherwise they struggled to find good offense. Plum had 20 points but needed 23 shot attempts to get there, and Wilson scuffled to just eight points (and 12 rebounds) on 3-of-10 shooting. They will have to figure out how to get their frontcourt going in Game 2, as they were simply out played in those spots by the Storm, but also knock down their threes as they were just 6-of-23 from deep in the opener.

When the splashy Harry Potter reunion aired earlier this summer, there was one glaring absence: the person who created the franchise. Why was J.K. Rowling AWOL from a special about her creation? It might have something to do with her coming out as a massive TERF who can’t shut up about her anti-transgender beliefs. She’s been quiet about her absence, but now she’s saying there was only one person who kept her from showing up: herself.

During an appearance on Graham Norton’s Radio Show Podcast (as caught by The Hollywood Reporter), Rowling claimed that when the special was being prepped, “no one said don’t come.” Indeed, she alleged, they even approached her to take part.

“Yeah, I was asked to be on that and I decided I didn’t want to do it,” she told Norton. “I thought it was about the films more than the books, you know, quite rightly. I mean, that was what the anniversary was about.”

Fans of Harry Potter — as well as the prequel series Fantastic Beasts — have seemed to have found a way to enjoy one of their favorite IPs while all but erasing its creator’s existence. The stars of the original films have all issued measured responses that distance themselves from Rowling’s anti-trans comments while not entirely denouncing the person who made them who they are. But perhaps even Rowling knew that her presence would not be welcome. Indeed, the special did its best to barely even mention her. Still, at least Warner Bros. is still proud to be working with her.

(Via THR)

Did the person who finally took down Donald Trump wind up being Donald Trump? The former president seems to be losing control of the narrative concerning the boxes and boxes of classified documents FBI agents discovered all over the resort where he now lives. While folks like Jon Stewart aren’t ready to pop the champagne just yet, even some in the GOP have to admit, however reluctantly, that he might have screwed the pooch.

Retiring Missouri Republican senator Roy Blunt went on ABC’s This Week, all ready to try and spin Trump’s increasingly worrying antics, which may have severely compromised national security. Blunt did that, struggling to argue some minor points: that the Senate Intelligence Committee, on which he serves, weren’t alerted to any suspicious activity; that other figures have taken classified documents in the past; that it’s fishy that this is all coming to light so close to the midterms.

But host George Stephanopoulos wouldn’t let him spin too much. “You’re still not answering the question!” Stephanopoulos told Blunt. “You were critical of Senator Clinton, who actually turned over what she had, turned over all her devices. What we have here is a situation where the President did not turn over these documents. Can you say whether that was right or right or wrong? Do you believe it is right for the president to take those documents to Mar-a-Lago?”

But Blunt could dilly-dally no longer. “He should have turned the documents over, and apparently had turned a number of documents over,” Blunt replied.

When Blunt threw suspicion upon the investigation, wondering why it “could go on for almost two years and less than 100 days before the election,” Stephanopoulos replied, “Well, it went on because the President didn’t turn over the documents, correct? He was asked several times, he didn’t turn them over. He was subpoenaed. He didn’t respond to the subpoena.”

Eventually Blunt had to conclude that, while Trump turned over plenty of documents back in January, he “should have turned over all of them.” He then made an extraordinary claim about someone who has repeatedly, endlessly demonstrated he never learns from his mistakes: “I imagine he knows that now.”

In the meantime, Trump can always profess his innocence on his failing Twitter clone, at least as long as it’s still live.

(Via Mediaite)

This article originally appeared on 02.24.22

Warning: The following story contains themes of suicide.

There’s an old Hebrew saying that if you “save one life, you save the world entire.” Who knows if Brooke Lacey, 22, had that lofty goal when she began a campaign in 2020 to help uplift people’s spirits during the first COVID-19 wave.

But her kind efforts may have done just that.

Lacey has struggled with mental health issues throughout her life and she knew that people like her were going to have a really hard time during COVID-19 lockdowns. A study from May 2021 found that the New Zealand population had “higher depression and anxiety compared with population norms.” The study also found that “younger people” and “those most at risk of COVID-19 reported poorer mental health.”

To help those who may be struggling, Lacey printed 600 stickers with an uplifting message and posted them around places where people may take their lives, including trains, bridges and large bodies of water in Wellington, New Zealand. She also made a bumper sticker with the same message for her car.

A driveru2019s bumper sticker has saved a strangeru2019s life.nnAfter her own battle with depression 22-year-old university student Brooke Lacey was inspired to create a batch of 600 signs to inspire those battling mental illness.nn#StarFMNews919 @Star919FMpic.twitter.com/0SSHhUvyvK

— StarFMNews919 (@StarFMNews919)
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The stickers spoke directly to those who may be contemplating taking their own life. “Please don’t take your life today,” the stickers read. “The world is so much better with you in it. More than you realize, stay.”

Earlier this month, Lacey parked her car in her university’s lot and when she returned to her vehicle to leave, she noticed a note was affixed to the windshield. Thinking it was someone complaining about how she parked or a ticket, she prepared for the worst but wound up being blindsided by the positive message.

A 22 year New Zealand student called Brooke Lacey, who’d suffered with depression created some bumper stickers to help others who might be going through a similar experience. Recently she found a heartfelt note under her windscreen wiper to thank herpic.twitter.com/kFfu9wtXnN

— Giles Paley-Phillips (@Giles Paley-Phillips)
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“I left my house with a plan and asked for a sign, any sign, I was doing the right thing when I saw your car in the parking lot. Thank you,” the note read. At first, Lacey wasn’t sure what the person was referring to, then she remembered her homemade bumper sticker.

“I had these made so long ago, put one on my car and forgot about them, until now,” she tweeted on her since deactivated account. “I am so glad whoever you are chose to stay today. You never know who needs this reminder.”

Now, it’s unclear exactly what the person’s “plan” was, but there’s no doubt that Lacey’s bumper sticker inspired them to choose life. Let’s hope that the sticker also inspired them to seek professional help for whatever difficulties they are going through.

Whether it was intentional or not, Lacey’s sticker was effective because it followed one of the most important strategies that people use at suicide hotlines. According to Science.org, it’s of utmost importance that people contemplating suicide are handled with “respect and empathy.”

Lacey’s story is a beautiful reminder of the power that one simple, thoughtful gesture can have on another person’s life. Every day, there are people all around us who are looking for a sign to give them a reason keep going. Whether it’s a hug, a smile or the right message in the right place at the right time, we should all be like Lacey and make sure everyone knows that the world is better with them in it. In fact, much more than they ever realize.

If you are having thoughts about taking your own life, or know of anyone who is in need of help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (273-8255) or text “HOME” to the Crisis Text Line: 741741.

This article originally appeared on 06.17.22

If you’re looking for a reminder of the good in people, we’ve got some sweet evidence for you.

Madison Mealy and her husband Blake recently moved to a rural area in the Blue Ridge Mountains and are new to country living. Mealy shared a video on TikTok showing her husband mowing the lawn with their baby in a backpack.

Cute, right? The only problem is they have a humongous lawn and her husband was mowing it with the teeniest push mower.

To be fair, if you’ve never had a big lawn, you may not realize how long it takes to mow and that not all lawn mowers are created equal. (They make riding lawn mowers for a reason, and it’s not because of laziness.)

Mealy shared her amusement at having sent her husband out to buy a mower and seeing him come back with the tiny mower. It was going to take him hours to mow their grass.

But after she took a shower and went back to check on his progress, what she found was so heartwarming.

Not one, not two, but several strangers—presumably neighbors—had seen Blake trying to tackle their acreage with a subpar mower, and they showed up to help.

“We don’t know any of these people,” Mealy wrote.

Watch:

See on Instagram

“Reminder: there’s a lot of good left in this world,” wrote Mealy.

It’s true. Helping without being asked. Showing up when you see a need. Taking a burden off of someone’s back without expecting anything in return. There are instances of pure human kindness like this all around us, every day, even if they’re not right in front of our faces.

We have plenty of viral examples of people at their worst, so it’s important that we share humanity at its best. And if you’re tempted to think that the former is the norm while goodness is the exception, don’t. Studies show that most people are honest, generous and helpful.

As Mealy said, “People are so good.” We just need beautiful reminders like this on occasion.

Thanks for providing one of those reminders, Mealy family. (Now go get yourselves a proper mower.)

This article originally appeared on 01.12.15 T

Meet Samira Omar.

All images by CBC News/YouTube

The 17-year-old was the victim of a horrific bullying incident. A group of girls threw boiling water on her, leaving her badly burned and covered in scars and discoloration.

She thought the physical scars would be with her forever — until she met Basma Hameed. Basma Hameed runs a tattoo shop, of sorts — but her tattoo artistry doesn’t look like you’d expect. Basma is a paramedical tattoo specialist. Instead of tattooing vibrant, colorful designs, she uses special pigments that match the skin in order to conceal scars.

It looks like this:

With Basma’s help, patients like Samira can see a dramatic decrease in their scar visibility and discoloration after a few treatments. She even offers free procedures for patients who are unable to afford treatment. That’s because Basma knows firsthand just how life-changing her work can be for those coping with painful scars left behind.

Check out the video below to find out more about Basma’s practice, including how she became her very first patient.

This article originally appeared on 05.06.16

Dads are ridiculous. But perhaps, in the world today, there is no dad quite so ridiculous as Rob Lopez:

Photo via Rob Lopez/YouTube.

On a morning not too long ago, Lopez apparently had the following thought: “I’m going to dress up as Darth Vader and wake up my 2-year-old.”

Photo via Rob Lopez/YouTube.

Clearly, the correct follow-up thought is, “No. That’s silly. Why would I ever wake up a 2-year-old. Like, on purpose.”

But not for Rob Lopez. Oh, no.

After suiting up…

…and receiving the mission critical sign-off from his wife.

He grabbed his lightsaber and gave it a go. The results … pretty much speak for themselves (fast-forward to 1:05 for the main event).

There are a couple of things about Lopez’s son’s reaction that we should talk about.

(First, this child is objectively the hardest core human on the face of planet Earth right now.)

He grabs the lightsaber he keeps next to his bed (just in case) and it’s game on, Dark Lord of the Sith. Game. On.

Think about how you would feel, as an adult person, in complete control of your faculties, with a firm grasp on the difference between fiction and reality, being aggressively prodded awake by a six-foot-tall man in a full-body Darth Vader mech-suit complete with voice modulator and terrifyingly heavy breathing.

Think about how loud you would scream and the volume of pee you would pee into your pants.

Meanwhile, this toddler — who is probably no more than three feet tall, groggy and vulnerable, with no cognitive ability to discern this is not the real Darth Vader — didn’t even think twice about taking him on.

Perhaps the most impressive part? At a mere 2 years of age, he’s already learned, perhaps, the single greatest lesson of “Star Wars.”

You don’t defeat the dark side with mad lightsaber skills (although they are fun to show off).

You defeat it with compassion.

…which, in this kid’s case, involves casually grabbing a book and asking Darth Vader to read him a story.

Empathy for Siths — with an assist from curiosity and literacy: That’s a lesson we could all use.

With Kevin Durant staying in Brooklyn, there are two remaining big names waiting to be traded this offseason. Utah’s Donovan Mitchell is expected to be moved whenever a team reaches the lofty asking price of the Jazz, who are hoping to replicate the pick return from sending Rudy Gobert to Minnesota. Russell Westbrook is also still waiting to find out where he will play basketball next season, although his situation is the opposite of Mitchell’s, as the Lakers will need to attach picks to Westbrook to unload his $47 million expiring salary.

It appears as though there’s a decent chance both players will be on the move in the same deal, as the Jazz are very much open to adding Westbrook for next season, provided the Lakers send them their 2027 and 2029 first round picks. According to Marc Stein, those two picks are “coveted” by Jazz CEO Danny Ainge, who would like to add the Lakers as a third team in a Donovan Mitchell trade package with the Knicks — or someone else potentially.

The two future first-round picks that the Lakers possess in 2027 and 2029 are the kind of top-shelf draft picks that Jazz CEO Danny Ainge is believed to covet. Russell Westbrook’s $47 million expiring contract and those picks could be the Lakers’ entree to a potential three-team swap … depending on the players that would land in Los Angeles.

Stein goes on to wonder if Evan Fournier and Bojan Bogdanovic would be enough of a return to get the Lakers interested in jumping into such a deal, as they are willing to part with those two picks provided the deal makes them a legitimate contender. While Utah will be hoping to load up on picks and young talent, they’ll be happy to pass whatever top veterans to the Lakers for those picks. The Lakers will have to decide if that return is better than the oft-discussed Buddy Hield and Myles Turner package from Indiana, or if they’ll push for something more like a return to L.A. for Jordan Clarkson.

In any case, as camp approaches, we figure to get a resolution on Westbrook and Mitchell’s situations, potentially all at once, as the league starts to finalize rosters and prepare in earnest for the 2022-23 season.

Ever since Joe Biden announced a (modest) amount of student loan forgiveness, Republicans have been up in arms. How dare President Joe Biden help alleviate the out-of-control debt that’s all but crippled a generation, say the likes of Lauren Boebert and Ted Cruz. Trouble is, any time they open their mouths about the subject, they only show how out-of-touch they are. Perhaps no one’s advice to debt-ridden graduates was more divorced from reality than that of Marco Rubio.

The Florida senator, taking a break from pearl-clutching over the FBI’s legitimate search of Mar-a-Lago, went on Fox News to rail against “freeloaders” who’ve had to deal with astronomically high tuition and avalanche upon avalanche of rising interest rates. Unlike others in his party, he tried to be helpful…sort of…not really.

“I owed over a hundred thousand dollars in student loans. The day I got elected to the Senate I had over $100,000 still in student loans that I was able to pay off because I wrote a book and from that money, I was able to pay it. If not I would have never, I would still be paying it okay?” Rubio said. “So it’s not about, I think the student loan thing in America is a big problem and it’s broken and it needs to be fixed and it needs to be reformed and I have bipartisan ideas.”

That’s good that Rubio wants to reach across the aisle to fix “the student loan thing.” But the first part of his response? Less so. His advice — just write a book, dummy! — wasn’t exactly the sage sharing of wisdom he perhaps thought it was. Sure enough, people on social media were quick to call out his lousy counselling.

Others pointed out that he has some questionable ways of making money, such as donations from the NRA.

Others dredged up his sketchy financial past.

And some pointed out that he didn’t even write that book — and that the ghostwriter may have been paid illegally.

If you’re one of the millions who will still have gobs of student debt even after Biden’s modest proposal, at least you could always pay it off by writing a book — or paying someone else to do it for you.

(Via Raw Story)